A Comparative Study Of Girard And Freud On Desire And Literature

This thesis analyzes and compares Girard and Freud’s theories on Desire and literature,which are also examined in the context of the history of changing concept of desire.From Freud to Girard,the studies of desire shift from the self to the other,facing different but echoing each other.The first chapter is a study of the relation between desire and literature.For Freud,a writer’s creation is a process in which the writer skillfully expresses his own desires and resonates in the readers’ hearts,and the works that embody the underlying structure of human psychology,that is,the Oedipus complex,are classics.Girard believes that the Freudian approach to literary interpretation can only lead to a narcissism.He called the literary works keen on self-expression romantic lies,and believed that such works exaggerated the uniqueness of the self,covered up the existence of imitation desire,and exacerbated the loneliness of modern people.According to Girard,works that reveal the mimetic nature of desire are classics.Chapter Two discusses the similarities and differences between Freud’s and Girard’s theoretical models of desire.Freud’s desire is the subject’s desire for the object,while Girard ’s desire is the subject’s imitation of the mediator’s desire.This difference is finally manifested in Freud’s search for the answer to the source of desire in the human ego,so a constantly conflicting ego is produced.And Girard understands desire in the relationship between the self and others,and finally finds that the self is always the slave of the other.For the individual,Freudian desire leads to the fragmentation of the self-subject,while Girard ’s desire reveals the loss of the status of the self-subject.For crowds,whether it is an over-repressed desire or a highly contagious desire to imitate,it may lead to the collapse of civilized society.Girard finally proposed that only communication and empathy can save human beings from hatred and disputes.Freud also made a similar point.The third chapter makes a brief introduction to the history of the development of desire theory in the West,and sorts out the theoretical resources that Freud and Girard may draw.It can be concluded that Girard was more influenced by Freud,but his theory also had a high degree of originality;although Girard often refuted Freud’s views,there are many more similarities between their theories than he thought.